


I Tell the Tale That I Heard Told (Mithridates, He Died Old)

by Chash



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 10:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12746370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: As the princess's personal guard, it's Bellamy'sjobto worry about things like whether or not her food is poisoned. This isn't wrong. He's supposed to be like this.But Clarke likes arguing with him, so he shouldn't be surprised the whole thing somehow escalates. They're good at weird escalation.





	I Tell the Tale That I Heard Told (Mithridates, He Died Old)

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely inspired by [this tumblr post](http://the-modern-typewriter.tumblr.com/post/167176541283/i-think-you-need-to-taste-this-for-me-the), although tbh it went differently than I planned.

The first time it happens, it’s actually Bellamy’s idea.

“Did you recognize that server?” he asks.

Clarke blinks. “I didn’t notice. Why?”

“Don’t eat that.”

She looks between him and her porridge in blank confusion. “Why not?”

“Because you’re the princess and someone I don’t know is bringing you food.”

“And?”

“And it could be dangerous.”

She finally puts it together and stares at him in somewhat surprised amusement. “You think someone poisoned my breakfast?”

“I think there’s no reason to risk it. I’ll try it first.”

The amusement in her expression melts away, leaving only the surprise. “ _You_?”

“I’m your guard. It’s my job to guard you.”

“Which doesn’t really work if you die.”

“So you’re saying you’re willing to eat this porridge because you don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, but you won’t let me eat it because I might die.”

She opens and closes her mouth, and then settles on, “You know what? You’re right. Go ahead. You can try the porridge first."

"You don't have to sound so upset about it," he says, picking up her spoon and scooping up a bite. "I'm trying to make sure you don't get assassinated. It's my job. Your family hired me to do this."

"We didn't hire you to eat my food for me."

"Yeah, that would be a really weird job. I'm not eating all of it, just the first bite. Because, again. I don't want you to die."

"I'm not going to die, Bellamy."

"Not if I taste your food," he agrees, and takes the bite.

"How long do I have to wait?" she asks, once he's swallowed his mouthful. "Am I assuming you'll die instantly? What if you die ten minutes after I start my meal?"

"Are you really that eager to eat?"

"I just want a timeline. How are you feeling? Are your lips tingling?"

"Is that how poison works?"

"I don't know. Thanks to you, I've never been poisoned."

He rubs his face. "Okay, fine. You can eat. But if we die, I'm going to haunt you. And tell you I tried to save you."

She gives his shoulder a pat. "I promise if we die, I'll let you haunt me. They probably just hired a new server,” she adds. “I'll let them know you need to be informed of all staffing changes."

"It's my _job_ ," he says again. "If you didn’t want me worrying about people trying to kill you, you shouldn't have made me your guard. But, again. You're the _princess_. Someone should be making sure you stay alive."

"And you're clearly the best person for the job." She takes a big bite of porridge. "See? Still alive."

"Until I kill you," he mutters, and she just smiles.

"Until then, yes." She offers him another spoonful of the porridge. "Do you want to make sure this part is safe?"

He pushes the spoon back toward her. "Just eat your damn breakfast, princess."

"Yes, sir," she says, and, for once, does as she's told.

*

Bellamy hasn't always been allowed to yell at the crown princess of Arcadia for being a stubborn asshole. For the first five years or so of his service, he was just an ordinary palace guard, familiar with the royal family only as his sovereigns. He'd see them pass, would answer questions when they had them, was always at their disposal. But he didn't expect to ever interact with them in any sustained way, and he's still not entirely sure how he came to be chosen as Princess Clarke's personal guard. No one ever told him, and sometimes he's afraid that if he asks, they'll realize it was a mistake and change their minds.

He likes being Clarke's guard. Even when she's ridiculous. 

And, for whatever reason, the porridge thing really enhances her ridiculousness.

It's not really surprising that she insists on going to the kitchen after breakfast to investigate whether or not they hired a new server, and, of course, they did, and they apologize for not informing her or Bellamy of the staffing change, but he assumes, somewhat foolishly, that that will be the end of it. After all, Clarke has proved she was right and he was paranoid, which he assumes is what she wanted. He's fine with it. It's still his job to be paranoid, and it's her job to--well, okay, she doesn't _have_ to roll her eyes and tell him he's being overprotective, but that _is_ what he expects. It's their dynamic, and he likes it. He likes that the princess feels so safe with him and so comfortable that the idea of her being poisoned is laughable.

So long as nothing ever happens to her, he's got a good life.

But the ridiculousness begins again when her lunch arrives, and she shoves her plate between them.

"What?" he asks.

"I thought you'd want to try it first."

"I don't think _all_ your food is poisoned."

"No, of course not. But we don't know, do we? Anything I eat could, potentially, be poisoned."

"Potentially," he repeats, with a frown. "You want me to try everything you eat?"

"I asked the kitchen to send two sandwiches," she says. "You can eat half of each. And then we're sure all my food is safe."

He picks up the first sandwich and takes a bite. "I'm not sure why you're punishing me for wanting you to live," he grumbles. 

"I'm not sure why you think I'm punishing you. I know you haven't eaten yet. You always eat after I do. Now you can just eat at the same time. And you'll know I'm not being poisoned. Nothing about that is a punishment."

"I don't always think you're being poisoned. I had a very specific reason for thinking it this one time. Do you want me to tell your mother about this?" he adds, glaring at her.

"Do you want to tell my mother about this? I thought you avoided talking to her as much as possible."

"That's you. I'm just following your lead. I think the queen likes me."

"She does. She thinks you're an upstanding young man who would never let me get poisoned in my own castle." She takes the sandwich out of his hand and takes a bite herself, handing him the other to try.

It should probably feel much stranger than it does.

"To be fair," he says, "I'd be the shittiest guard of all time if I let you get poisoned in your own castle. You should at least have to go somewhere else to get poisoned."

"That's why most people don't worry about it."

"Again, I had a good reason."

"And I agree with you. There's danger everywhere. Anything could happen. It's a good idea to have a plan."

"And that plan is double portions of your meals?"

"I can't just ask for two separate meals," she says. "What if only one's poisoned?"

He looks down at the sandwich in his hand, finally gives up. "Honestly, I have no idea what you're trying to prove here, princess."

"Nothing. I think you were right."

"I know _that's_ bullshit," he says.

"Maybe I just want company while I eat."

"That doesn't sound right either."

"I'm worried you're skipping meals."

"Plausible, but I'm not."

"It's a long con to poison the only personal guard I’ve ever liked so I can replace you with someone I hate and have something to complain about again."

He snorts. "There we go. That's it."

She taps her sandwich against his, like she'd clink a glass of wine. "Don't worry. It's going to take a while. And you'll be eating well until I do it."

"Yeah, when you put it like that," he says. "Life is good."

*

The problem with the food thing is that it is, at heart, completely fine. When he asks at the kitchen how everything is going, in a general way, one of the cooks asks how he’s liking the extra portions, so apparently they all know he’s eating half of Clarke’s meals now and don’t think it’s unusual. Which, given the way Monty winks at him, might be a problem on its own, but now isn’t the time to address anyone’s opinions on his and Clarke’s relationship.

It will never be that time. He’s just going to ignore those rumors unless anyone asks him, at which point he can say they aren’t true. But preemptive denial never helps.

Regardless, with the kitchen on board and no one else to care about the whole thing, Bellamy doesn’t really have anything he can object to. When Clarke eats with her parents, she has her normal portions and doesn't mention anything about his sharing her meals, so they aren't suspicious, and if Clarke's happy, he shouldn't have any objections either.

Still, just letting it go means letting her win whatever is happening, and even if there’s no theoretical downside to that, he’s not just giving up without a fight.

“I got some arsenic,” he tells her, about two weeks into his sharing all her meals.

As he hoped, she startles and her eyebrows shoot up. “Whom are we murdering?”

“Who said anything about _we_?”

“If you didn’t want me involved, I assume you wouldn’t have told me about the arsenic.”

He has to laugh. “You’re right. But I’m not murdering anyone. If you’re so worried about poison, I figure we should work on building up immunity. Then we don’t have to worry.”

“If _I’m_ so worried? I wasn’t the one worrying.”

“But you’re the one making me share all your meals. So yeah, you’re worried.”

“How does one actually develop an immunity to poison?” she asks, which means he’s won the first stage of the conversation.

“Carefully. I was reading about it—“

“Of course you were.”

“You think I was just going to blindly start feeding you poison?”

She laughs. "You know, the more you say about this, the worse of an idea it sounds like."

"We're not going to become immune to _all_ poisons. Just the ones that are safe."

"It's _poison_ , Bellamy. I don't think any of it's safe."

"The safest ones possible, in the safest possible way. We can do more research if it would make you feel better."

Clarke regards him for a long moment, and this could be it. Whatever stupid game they're playing, this might be the stage that makes her back down. "If anyone ever finds out about this, it was my idea, and you didn't know anything about it," she finally says.

"What?"

"If my mother finds out, she'll probably have you executed regardless, but if you act like you didn't know--"

"You know I'm the one who's supposed to protect you, right?"

Her face twists with some emotion he can't identify. "You keep saying that like I'm _not_ supposed to protect you."

"You're not."

"That doesn't mean--" She looks away, lip caught in her teeth, and his stomach lurches. 

"I don't think you want me to die or anything," he says, giving her the out. "But I'm a shitty guard if my life isn't less important than yours."

"Your life is just as important as mine," she snaps.

"You know what I mean. When I enrolled in the guard, I swore to protect you and your family with my life. That's not a bad thing. You aren't under an oath to protect me. If you were, this whole thing wouldn't work. We can't protect each other."

"Not always," she admits. "If there's ever a fight, I'm not going to pick up a sword and try to kill anyone to defend you. But if you were involved in a diplomatic incident you don't think I'd just let you die, do you?"

"Depends on what I did."

"Bellamy."

"If you knew I had some arsenic and Prince Finn happened to die under mysterious circumstances that looked a lot like arsenic poisoning--"

She laughs. "You don't need to poison Prince Finn. No one's expecting me to marry him anymore. And if you were implicated in a poisoning, I'd make sure you didn't hang for it."

"I know." For a wild second, he thinks about saying it, asking how she'd deal with it if he was caught in a compromising position with a princess, someone above his station, someone he--

It's only a second; he knows better than to talk about that. 

"So, if we're not developing an immunity and we're not poisoning any princes, what am I going to do with this arsenic?" he asks instead.

"I never said we're _not_ developing an immunity," Clarke protests. "That would be useful. But we should be very, very careful. Since neither of us wants to die poisoning ourselves."

"That would be a stupid way to go. I found a table," he says. "In one of the books in the royal library. Recommended doses for developing immunity. You're better at medicines than I am, you can see how it looks."

"It won't kill us right away, in any case," she says, cheerful, and he snorts. 

"Yeah, that's the spirit."

*

Developing an immunity to arsenic isn't really so bad. Granted, it's not _good_ either, but ingesting very small quantities of poison doesn't have a huge impact on his life, aside from some occasional stomach cramping. Which is maybe not the best reason to keep doing it, but Clarke's still getting double portions from the kitchen and having her eat with him, so he needs to keep doing his thing too.

If anyone knew about this, they would definitely call both of them out for being fucking idiots. But since it's their own private idiocy, it's just going to keep escalating until one of them stops it.

Clarke's the one who finally does.

"What would you do if you actually thought I'd been poisoned?" she asks one afternoon. She's writing letters and he's reading, and he wasn't actually thinking about assassination attempts at all, for once.

"After it happened, you mean?" he asks, once he's given it some thought.

"No. If you thought someone gave me poisoned food, would you actually eat it?"

His frown deepens. "I don't think I understand the question."

She huffs. "If you really think my food is going to kill me, the last thing I want is for you to test it to find out. So--we need to come up with another plan."

"It's my--"

"It's not your job. It's Murphy's job. We _have_ a food taster, and you didn't even think about calling him in? Or asking for a new meal? You just immediately wanted to try it."

"And?"

"And you don't see a problem with that?"

He rubs his face. "Not the one you do, apparently. I need you to just--tell me what the issue is, and we can work it out."

"What's your issue?" she asks, sounding wary.

The conversation is just getting more and more confusing. "Who says I have one?"

"You want us to develop poison immunity."

"You want me to try all your food, not even just the suspicious food."

"I want _you_ ," she says, and they both freeze.

It's not as if he hadn't thought she might. He's hoped, on more than one occasion, that these feelings weren't only his, that all the signs he'd seen of her potential attraction to him meant what he hoped they did. But he'd thought they'd stay quiet about it. It's not a very practical way to feel.

"You have me," he says, slow. "However you want me, you've got me, Clarke."

She closes her mouth on her objection, looks him up and down instead. He makes himself stand his ground, not wanting to overstep in case he's misinterpreted, in case his own feelings made him think--

When she steps in, he mirrors the movement, and when she pulls him down, he's the one to first press his mouth to hers. Her arms slide around him and he tugs her close, and the kiss goes hot and wet in seconds, Clarke pressing into him as if she can't get close enough, his hands roving all up and down her back.

"Clarke," he says again, just a breath, and she tugs his bottom lip with her teeth as she pulls back.

"I wanted an excuse to eat with you. That's all. Nothing more and nothing less. You gave me one."

He laughs, less because it's funny and more because he's so happy. "You could have just asked me to eat with you."

"You could have gone to the kitchen and asked about the serving boy instead of volunteering to check my food for poison," she says, scowling.

"It's my job to--"

"I don't want your job to be to die for me, I want it to be to live with me."

He brushes his mouth against hers again, smiling. "And obviously the best way to get that across was by making me taste all your food before you ate it."

"You were the one who decided we should start eating poison regularly. I don't think I'm the only one who reacted inappropriately here."

"Guards can't just say they're in love with princesses," he points out. "It's not really appropriate. From a political standpoint."

"But you are," she says. "In love with the princess."

"Of course I am, yeah."

She kisses him again. "I'm sure we can find someone else to taste our food for us, when we need it. Or, of course, just _send it back_."

"I didn't really think anything bad was going to happen," he grumbles. "But _you_ were just going to eat it."

"I knew you weren't really worried."

"I was! But--I didn't think I was going to die."

"I didn't either. But if you had--"

"I know." He gives her a smile. "How about we both just stay alive?"

"Does that mean we're going to stop eating poison on purpose?" she asks.

He makes a show of thinking it over. "Do you think your mother's going try to use arsenic to get rid of me, or will she be more direct?"

She laughs and gives his hair a gentle tug. "I think she and my father have seen this coming ever since I asked if I could have that handsome, black-haired soldier for my personal guard.'

"And they agreed?" he asks, grinning.

"You had an exemplary record. So they thought you were too loyal a soldier to do anything inappropriate with the heir to the throne."

"Wow, they don't know much about either of us." After one more kiss, he pulls back to look at her, reality starting to edge into the warm haze of happiness that's surrounding his brain. "What are you going to--how does this--"

"First of all, let's have dinner," she says. "I'll talk to them in the morning. I'm not worried."

"No?"

"I did say they gave up on Prince Finn. It wasn't just him. I haven't been subtle in my affections."

"You could have told _me_ ," he grumbles, and she tugs his hand, guiding him to the door.

"I did. Eventually. I don't think either of us could be said to have dealt with this perfectly. But we still have time to get to the kitchen and ask for two plates."

"Or we can take one plate and have time for something else," he offers.

Her eyebrows shoot up. "Something else?"

He tugs her in for another kiss. "I assume your parents won't be leaving us alone once you talk to them, so we should take advantage of this time we have unsupervised."

"You're right," she agrees, with a wicked smile. "We can get you your own plate tomorrow."

*

"Did you recognize that server?"

Bellamy's hand freezes on the way to his fork. "I can't tell if you're fucking with me or not."

"I'm not. I genuinely didn't recognize him."

"Did you have a solution to that?" he asks, careful. They're getting married _tomorrow_ , now probably isn't the time to get involved in another bizarre argument that ends with the two of them deciding they need to develop a tolerance to arsenic. They have too much to do in the next twenty-four hours.

Clarke smiles. "Much better response than last time."

"It's almost like I'm your fiance, not your guard, now."

"Just like that." She clucks her tongue. "Miller?"

Their new guard appears at her elbow. "What?"

"Can you go to the kitchens and find out who brought this up? And get the food taster, while you're at it. Just to be safe."

"It doesn't bother you to have someone else risk their life for ours?" he asks, curious.

"I'm not convinced Murphy can be killed, at this point."

"So he's a really shitty food taster."

She considers this carefully. "I think he'd recognize the poison but survive."

"Uh huh. Keep telling yourself that."

"People might die for us," Clarke says, with a sigh. "It's part of being in a position of power. But you're right, I'm happier now that you're not one of the people who's _expected_ to die for me. If someone's going to be killed by my food, I don't want it to be either of us."

"Let's aim for no one being killed by our food." He has to smile. "I can't wait for Murphy to try every single piece of food at our wedding before we eat it."

"Better safe that sorry," she says. "I went to all this trouble to marry you, I'm planning to be married to you for a good long time."

He leans over to kiss her. "I like that plan."

"I like it too," she says. "So we can wait a little while for lunch."

"Yeah," he agrees. "We've got plenty of time."


End file.
